


Irony of Iron Thorns

by lilysmiles



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-28 00:42:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20769665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilysmiles/pseuds/lilysmiles
Summary: Some families are just not meant to work.A child clings to their mothers skirt not knowing what it wants and cries. A teenager knows what it wants and throws a tantrum. An adult paves their own path towards what they want and tries to salvage the pieces.





	1. Prologue

Prologue

Sitting on the edge of a cliff, watching the carnage below, he thought that it was never meant to end this way. How did a peaceful family of loving siblings have so much hatred within? Why would brothers that recently sang and laughed together go against each other in arms? So many wings were torn, broken and severed. So many essences of little brothers lost or mutilated beyond repair. Maybe it was finally time to come to terms with the fact that there was truly no going back from something like this. And it pained him to finally admit, that the being they all reverently called Father, never loved any of them at all.

It was difficult to define the moment of when it all went wrong. Perhaps it was at the very beginning, maybe they were created initially flawed. The beings that meant to be forever tainted. Perhaps, when they were given their ranks and powers? When their little brothers finally understood that no matter their devotion and loyalty, they could never outrank an archangel… Perhaps when they were given their first orders… Perhaps when they developed the concept of competition, to strive to be stronger, better than others? Perhaps it was knowledge itself, as with it came the understanding that they were all living a beautiful lie.

“Poetic, isn’t it?”

He didn’t pretend to be startled, feeling a younger brother’s essence from a distance away.

“If there is any poetry to be had from uncertainty or pain, Metatron.”

He didn’t turn around, watching the scene below.

“I wouldn’t say anything of uncertainty, Gabriel.”

He was once more pulled from his thoughts.

“What do you mean?”

“Only that it is not up to them to fight what is predestined. Father said so. So Lucifer will lose. Michael victorious.”

Warning bells started softly chiming within his head. He wanted to ask, to clarify many situations with their Father for a long time. However, he always changed his mind at the last moment. He decided to observe and make his own conclusions instead. Unfortunately his beloved elder brother was never that patient. 

“And how would you know?”

“Oh Gabriel, did you really never realise that all those orders, all those major events where written in stone? I am the scribe! Truly, Lucifer’s rebellion was written of eons ago?”

“And why did you tell me of this? I do not believe that this is common knowledge even among the archangels.”  
Metatron’s vessel had the decency to try to look uncomfortable, but couldn’t quite manage it. 

“Father is leaving.”

“What!!!???”

He really should not lose control of his voice. Metatron’s vessel started visibly cracking. Had there been any humans in close vicinity, they would have been obliterated.

“Calm down! Talk about overreacting… It’s all part of Father’s plan. He wrote of it. Angels will pose on one side, Lucifer’s outcasts on the other. There will be competition for the human souls. When they sufficiently develop, Lucifer will be released from imprisonment and face Michael. Thus we will have the apocalypse. Tada end of story. The end. Father needs an archangel that knows what’s going on to act in his stead so that everything goes according to plan. You are the more reasonable choice. Michael is hot headed and Raphael is mediocre.”  
Keeping his vessel’s expression forcefully neutral, he was carefully holding his grace back from reacting.

“But what is the point? Father could follow thorough his plans himself. Why is he leaving? And even so, what is the point? Such a plan would result with the eradication of the human race and significant losses among our brothers.”

“That is the point! Ever since Lucifer became the keeper of the Mark, many angels that had ‘contact’ with him became tainted with darkness as had Lucifer himself. When he passed the Mark on to that human, Cain I think his name was, all descendants of that human and those he was close with became tainted. When Father realised the problem, all of the humans and most of the angelic race were already tarnished. We are some of the few who are not. The reason the human race cannot be immediately obliterated, is that Father wrote down the conditions of the apocalypse which currently cannot be replicated. The only reason the last cleansing was even possible, was due to the fact that there were more Nephilim than humans running around, and even then, we had to ensure that the human race survives. There is also the problem that Father cannot personally set the apocalypse in motion and without it, the tainted angels cannot be put down.”

The more he was hearing, the more disturbed he was. It took all his self control to not demonstrate his turmoil of emotions within his grace.

“And how is it that I am not tainted? I had probably the most contact with Lucifer besides his squadrons…”  
Metatron looked like he was holding back laughter. 

“If you had THAT kind of contact with anyone I would eat my vessel’s beard. Lucifer was like a Cerberus standing watch over his only puppy with you. Everyone knew of it. Everyone minded it. It was like a real rule in Heaven… those with a death wish, please approach Lucifer’s little baby brother. Even Michael wouldn’t dare. Might have actually been one of the reasons for why he is so determined to destroy Lucifer…”

“Metatron… Yew… just yew… I did not need to know THAT! Just let me get my head around this information… I need to think about this, alone. Go back to Father, I will be with you shortly…”

Metatron turned around and started walking.

“Fine. But don’t take too long. Some offers are only made once…”

And the next moment, Gabriel was alone.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring into the distance. The carnage no longer bothered him. The future no longer bothered him. He simply couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. If he was anyone else he would have exploded in rage, looked for someone to blame. But he was Gabriel, the cheeky baby of the archangels who was never caught red-handed. And he was just starting to realise just how sheltered his life had been under Lucifer’s care. 

He remembered becoming. One moment he just was. The moment before, he wasn’t. And then he was there. It came to him as whispers within his being that the huge presence around him was his Father. There were three others, smaller but familiar, beautiful… His brothers now, the archangels. On the peripheral he could sense smaller essences that once would be, his future little brothers, the angels.   
Then Father gave him a name. It was beautiful. Just like his siblings’ names. But his was his favourite… Gabriel. Then Father spoke again.

“Lucifer, Gabriel is your responsibility now.”

And that was that. 

He didn’t understand it then, but at first Lucifer wasn’t… content with having a younger brother dumped on him. He didn’t show it, and he certainly took his new responsibility seriously. However, his grace was tense around little Gabby for some time.

Although all angels were created with the access to significant knowledge of the universe such as the understanding of all languages, that did not mean they could apply it. The situation could be likened to a five year old knowing how to do calculus but not knowing how to count. 

Much of Lucifer’s teaching strategy was trial and error. Some things worked. Some things didn’t. Some things worked for them to later understand that they really shouldn’t have. Like when little Gabby learned to fly before he could walk. But then, perhaps being thrown off a cliff was just the right motivation…

Little Gabby grew. And so did his bond with Lucifer. Gabby knew that if he was in trouble, he shouldn’t go to Michael, who was so rule abiding he would designate a punishment straight away, or Raphael, who saw all his mistakes as a reason to snitch to Father. Lucifer on the other hand had a completely different approach. His credo was ‘what they don’t know won’t hurt them’, he taught little Gabby to never get caught and manipulate his failures into achievements. In the end, Gabby was the only one who got away with calling him Lucy.

But things were changing. Soon they had more little angel brothers. They were all assigned to Raphael. And then they had new little siblings, who Father named humans. And everything went downhill from there.

At first the new babies, the humans were treated the same as any baby angel. They lived, and they laughed and they played. But things were different for them. Unlike the baby angels that could not break unspoken rules, humans were different, unlike them they had free will. And in the end that was what made all the difference.

When the humans were cast out to Earth, not many missed them. Because on Earth, they were free to love and have children. And the angels discovered the emotion later named Envy. Unlike the angels, humans had a finite lifespan, and so the angels knew Death, and they were scared. 

The little brothers were unhappy for a long time. But when their half human kin were killed, it was truly the last straw. What no longer little Gabby, but the archangel Gabriel expected, was for Lucifer to be the one to lead the rebellion. So the least of what he could do was not to get involved, which led him to the cliff overseeing the battlefield, and the terrible truths he would rather not know.


End file.
